And now a guest spot from Dan Braverman, Better known to the folks in NOLA as Big Al, friend of the undead.

Big Al here again, and this time it’s no more Mister Nice-Zombie! The time for silliness is past, so I will not be mentioning “Dead of Na’vi,” “The Hurl Locker,” “We Are The Werewolf,” or any of the other jokey-type things I blathered about recently, except in this sentence; so you’re past them now. Even though they are brilliant.

Dan Forcey is my friend, and I take offense that some of the comments on this blog have deteriorated into personal attacks. This is entertainment, not war. The producers acquired the rights from Sergio Bonelli, one of the most respected comic book publishers in the world and a man who obviously had enough faith in their ability to interpret Dylan for the screen that he signed on the dotted line. If he’s willing to give us a chance, is it too much to ask that you give us the benefit of the doubt and at least wait till you’ve watched it before ripping it apart?

I haven’t seen any of this movie, except the scenes I shot. And even through my opaque zombie contacts, when I saw the dailies, I was watching some of the best raw footage I had ever been involved with. The make-up effects and set are phenomenal, and Kevin is a very smart director: he cast well and trusted his actors to improvise and put our own spin on our characters. It felt spontaneous and fresh while we were shooting and, believe me: that will come across on the screen. Brandon manages to be cynical and dark while bringing the same understated humanity to Dylan Dog that he brought to Superman, the guy who plays my hunchback (sorry, pal, but I can’t find you in the credits!) is the best (well, also the only) hunchback I’ve ever worked with, and Anita is captivating even though she was a bit blurry to me at the time. Damn those zombie contacts!

I made a lot of friends on “Dead of Night,” including Brandon, Anita and Dan, and have stayed in touch with most of them. I assure you no one is more anxious to see this movie than I am, but I know from experience that getting a movie done right–especially such an ambitious movie as this–is neither easy nor quick. I would like to see it open this Friday, but that ain’t gonna happen. I advise you all to trust Dan Forcey and the whole creative team as I do, and have patience. Whenever DoN opens, it’s going to make an impact. Take my word for it. Zombies don’t lie.

And to the low-life who threatened Dan’s family, I would hunt you down and eat your brain, if you had one.

I started off typing this post with the words “I’m sorry…” but decided to delete those words. I’m really not. I haven’t been posting recently and I’m not really sorry for the reason why. You see, I just kind of got burnt out. For every comment you see here that is good, bad or indifferent, there are easily five that I don’t approve that are childish, mean, or downright offensive. The last one that really got me was from a Dylan Dog fan that threatened to come to my home and beat up my wife to “show me how it felt when your favorite person in the world gets abused.” Apparently, in their eyes, that’s what we’re doing to Dylan Dog. To be honest, that kind of creeped me out. This isn’t my job, to post here. In fact, it actively takes me away from my job, which is to get movies like this set up and on their way to becoming movies. What I do here is something I do to honor you fans. To shine some light on how things are going with something you all. I’ve tried to add a little bit of personality and humor to it all and keep this blog a fun place, too. I’ve had fun getting to know a lot of the regular readers here and I think we’ve had some good debates. That last comment kind of took the fun out of it, though. Maybe I’m being too sensitive and maybe if I am, the blogosphere isn’t really the place for me. I’ve certainly seen that kind of behavior before on other sites, so it’s not that uncommon.

Moving forward, I’ll be posting news as I get it, but not much else.

The producers saw the film and loved it. Had a few small changes, but nothing major. We’re now doing color correction and sound mixing.

We have secured an Italian distributor, but it will be up to them to announce the release date for the film. Domestic should be coming very soon and you won’t see a trailer until we have secured domestic.